I have key-framed some rotations so the large gear rotates once in one second, and the small gear rotates three times, and it plays perfectly well.

Thoughts and questions:

• I could do a "Collect Clip" and get the rotation added to the "Perform" menu
• But doing that only rotated one gear at a time.
• Is there a fairly easy way to animate the GEAR SET (both at the same time)?
• Would I have to make a master prop with the two gears as sub-props?
• Would it be best for me to use 3DXchange in some way:
• I own 3DXchange, so I can use that or stay in iClone.
• How best to deal with more than one rotation?
• What if I want it to rotate continuously?
• What if I want it to start and stop during a clip?
• How about speed up and slow down?

I hope that gives you enough information to give me some tips and guidance and share some lessons learned.

Thanks.

@rampa - I already have an acceptable set of gears made using iClone primitives, and they rotate nicely in iClone (for 1 second).  If you think exporting the iProps to 3DXchange is the best path forward, I can give that a whirl.

I'm going to modify my question a bit.

Suppose I have something like a spider or any prop with multiple linkages.  I want to make an animation sequence and be able to apply it to the prop.

What is the best way to go about that?  What are the basic steps in the process?

I went to 3DXchange, assuming it would be fairly straight forward.  So I first tried "non-standard character" rigging, but even non-standard still appears to be targeted toward bipedal (human) type characters.

Can someone at least direct me to a good tutorial?  The ones I'm finding are mostly for rigging "robots" from various geometry, but they all map to a human-like bone structure.

I'm sure I'm missing something basic and simple.

I keep assuming 3DXchange is the correct place to start.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:  A Jack-in-the-box

What if I wanted the crank to turn three times, the lid to pop open, and "Jack" to pop up WHILE the lid is opening.

In iClone, I'd like to be able to right-click on the prop and pick a "Crank and pop" action.

My apologies, Dennis.

Oh, non-human... I guess I somehow missed that.

I'll see what I can find about "prop bones."

Also thanks to TheBiz too.  I'll check it out.

(And it's always nice to Colour too, even if it's accidental.)

1. I created this prop in iClone
2. I attached each object to the one beneath it (see first picture, below)
3. I did NOT do a "merge"
4. (Umm... isn't there an easier way to get it into 3DXchange?  I "Added" my prop to the library, did a "find" to open the directory with the prop, and dragged it into my 3DXchange window.  I was assuming there'd be an "Export to 3DXchange" or "Edit in 3DXchange" like there is when I have an avatar selected.)
5. Why is "Non-standard" my only option (see second picture, below)?  Why isn't "Non-human" a bone rigging option?

I'm just trying to animate a couple of the objects and get it back into iClone with "perform" capability.  Once I figure out the basic process, then I'll work on my real prop.

>>> QUESTION:  Is the root cause because my prop is not already a "bone skinned" prop?

(I actually looked in the 3DXchange manual - gasp! - so that's what made me wonder about that possibility.  If so, how do I "bone" it?)

Figure 1...

Figure 2...

In the iClone HELP page, I search for "non-human" and found something that looked like a good tip.  (They're mostly talking about spring effects, but also "bone-rigged" props.)

It looked like the secret would be to MERGE my prop, but I still don't get any bones in 3DXchange (or iClone).

That would be great if I wanted to create a humanoid (standard or non-standard).  But I'm not trying to create a person.

I don't want to have to use "at least 15 props."  What if I wanted three legs, like a "War of the Worlds" machine?

Do I have to do my bone-rigging in Blender (or something like that) in order for me to get a bone-rigged non-human prop?

P.S.

This is off-topic for me, but what is the difference between a standard and non-standard human?

I'm not sure exactly what I did differently, but I'm starting to see bones!  I swear I've done the same steps before.

Yeah, no 3DXchange yet, but it's behaving in iClone.

Interesting "extra bone" that appears between the props, allowing me to "separate" them a bit.  I even have some IK working.  That page you linked to was great for that, I never would have guessed how to do the IK.

Still seems odd that the bones go away when I drop the prop into 3DXchange.  Even if there's no need to do it, it seems strange that it loses them.

I'm very encouraged that I might be able to use the IK on my prop.  I'm going to go play around some more.

P.S.

Still curious about difference between a normal and a non-standard human.

• How does the merging, and animating parts prior to merging, work with the "Perform" command?
• I remember someone talking about having actions (not sure if they were the "Perform" actions or not) on props vs. sub-props.  I might have to look that up again.
• Getting back to my original two gears (at the start of this thread), when I attached my gears to a "parent" object, I'd get errors when I tried to animate them using the Perform method.  That's a bit vague, but maybe with my newly emerging skills I'll be able to get it to work, or phrase a more intelligent question on that topic.

Thanks again for the support.

Thanks for the clarification.  Not a factor to me (not yet, and not even for the foreseeable future) but my curiosity has been satisfied.  Ahhh.... that, and a nice cup of coffee... a great way to start my day.

I was able to get IK Animation to work on a simple prop.  I was also able to break it.  The difference seems to be how much "resetting" I do (Transform, Rotation, Scale) and exactly when in the process I do it (before or after doing Attach action, and before or after Merging the sub-props).

So many variables, and so many ways to do it wrong.  But there's hope.

Speaking of hope, I hope to summarize what I've learned when I can consistently get the results I'm looking for.